Then it was Gilchrist’s turn. “I was leading the second section out of Bitburg. Our ground briefing gave us the area of build-up to the north and the scramble message was the last thing I heard on the radio. Just white noise, and if you could get a channel free then it was jammed even worse with voices — so we went visual on hand signals. Believe me, brother, we didn’t need ground control — the sky up there is just full of MiGs and F-4s and F-15s. My three went down, just like that” — he mimed it with his hands — “and then something hit my ship hard. The sonofabitch flashed across me slightly low — it was a wide angle shot and I just hit the gun button and he rolled straight over. Back at gunnery school they’d be proud of me, but,” he added ruefully, “not here I guess. As he went down I saw his tail markings and it was a Belgian F-16 with a MiG 23 right on his tail. I guess it was the MiG that shot me up. Anyway my left engine was out and my power controls had gone so that’s what got me in here on such a lousy landing.”
Karl smiled encouragingly as Gilchrist went on. “I felt really bad doing Ivan’s work for him but I had my own troubles. I sure hope that Beige got out all right — but — hell, those F-16s aren’t meant to be this side of the SAM belt anyway. If this is the way it’s going to be, and no radio either, you’ve got to stick in your own air space or ride down on the silk.”
It was time for von Marschall to join his squadron for briefing. They wished each other luck. As the airfield defence alert state was still only Amber he left Gilchrist in the Wing ground-training room. The walls were pasted with aircraft recognition silhouettes. There were some good ones of the F-16; he thought that might be helpful.”
“146 Air Defence Battery Royal Artillery had deployed its twelve Rapier detachments that night along the Hotenberg ridge and out on to the plain to the east. The task of these detachments was to defend I British Corps Headquarters which had established itself in the village of Nieder Einbecken. Each detachment had a launcher, loaded with four slim, matt-green Rapier anti-aircraft missiles, a target tracker and a complement of four soldiers commanded by a sergeant.
There was no sign of battle — no smoke, no noise other than a muted organ-swell to the east and north. Sergeant Edwards swung his eye across from the four dark-green missiles on the launcher to the camouflaged pile that was the tracker, with Gunner Henry buried in the rubber eye-piece. His gaze turned to the ripening asparagus field below: hadn’t someone called this the season of mist and mellow fruitful…
Alarm! The cry from Henry made him swivel and run to the tracker. He dived into the camouflage as “Target seen!” was bellowed into his ear. With a curse he disentangled his head from the netting and looked out over the plain. There was an aircraft approaching, but far too slow and far too low. Something was wrong.
“It’s not hostile,” called Edwards. A Tornado, trailing a white stream of fuel, was making an erratic course westwards. Uncharitably Edwards swore at the pilot, for he was way outside any safe lane and too close for comfort to the headquarters. As the Tornado scraped over the Hotenberg he suddenly felt apprehensive and with an urgency that suprised him ordered the rest of the detachment to stand to.
Low out of the eastern horizon four silent dots were approaching at high speed. “Targets seen and hostile!” burst from the tracker. In the far distance two flashes appeared from the ground. The left-hand Soviet aircraft disappeared in a ball of brilliant yellow flame but the second missile soared fruitlessly into space.
“In coverage!” yelled Henry. Edwards ordered him on to the centre aircraft of the remaining three and immediately a Rapier left the launcher. The missile curved gracefully towards its target and with tremendous elation the detachment watched a second Fitter scatter itself over the plain in a brilliant burst of fireworks. Simultaneously the port wing of the right-hand Fitter burst apart and the aircraft, spiralling downwards, covered the asparagus field with a sheet of oily flame. Before Edwards could react a second Rapier had left its rails towards the survivor of the sortie but with a thunder of afterburners the Russian pulled sharply to the left, frighteningly close to the detachment, and skimmed at tree-top height along and over the ridge. Their second missile had been wasted.
The action had taken just over two minutes. A quarter of an hour later Edwards was wondering why the four aircraft had not gone for Corps Headquarters when he noticed that, low out of the eastern horizon, four more Fitters were approaching fast.”
Taken from A Civilian in a Short, Hot War, reminiscences by A. E. Arnold, Chatto and Windus, London 1986.
This account of an action of an ATGW section in a brigade of Guards battle group was given by its commander and only survivor to R. J. McLintock, who has reproduced it in his book Micks in Action: With the Irish Guards in Lower Saxony, Leo Cooper, London 1986:
“… about thirty T-72s and at least twice that number of BMP now west of the obstacle, sounds of a large force following them — over,” crackled the headphones into Sergeant Patterson’s half-deafened ears beneath the hood of his sweat- and dirt-stained NBC suit. He had been awake for more than forty-eight hours; his last real sleep had been in his quarter near the barracks three nights before. He silently prayed that his wife and baby daughter had got back to England safely and jerked his mind back from nameless fears to the present, to the section of Milan anti-tank guided weapons he commanded in the Irish Guards battle group.
They had deployed and dug for the last two days and this morning the Soviet attack came in. The war that everyone had said could never happen had begun. They had been in position on the edge of the now deserted village all day while Soviet aircraft roared overhead and the sounds of war from the east grew closer, like an approaching thunderstorm. They had watched pitiful, horrifying remnants of the covering force withdrawing — vehicles loaded with wounded grinding back up the main route, always under strafing and bombing. Grim reminders of an overloaded APC which had exploded 100 metres to their right now hung on the fence outside the once neat German Gasthaus.
Then came the shelling. For twenty minutes the earth shook and the sky darkened as tons of explosives crashed around Patterson. One direct hit and his brother, cheerful young Sean, with Guardsman Nevin, ceased to exist. Nos. 1 and 4 posts had survived. The men at No. 3 post were alive but wounded, with only three missiles left. With growing disbelief he watched through the dust and smoke the ragged lines of Soviet armour coming across the battered cornfields — fields which in the sunshine that same morning had reminded him so much of the Sligo farm of his youth.
With a black hatred he followed the tanks through his sight — watching and waiting for the command tank. They had been taught to recognize it, with little difficulty, by the way it moved. He picked it up as it passed, and with a muttered prayer fired. He cursed the sweat that ran into his eyes but held the crosswires on his target while he counted… 8-9-10. A huge flash and the T-72 lurched to a halt, smoke billowing. He tore his eye from the sight and saw nearby another tank explode. No. 4 post had scored too.
The next minutes lasted for ever — reload — aim in the thickening dust and smoke — fire — down on the belly and crawl with gasping lungs to another position — then reload again — fire. After ten minutes No. 4 post was gone; then Flynn, his No. 2, was ripped from wrist to shoulder by a splinter.